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Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data of an urban school, this paper contrasts how two White female teachers take up the idea of ‘teaching for social justice.’ Fourth-grade teacher Maestra Rachel enacts a superficial understanding focused solely on curricular topics, while third-grade teacher Maestra Jennifer roots her teaching in an understanding of how students experience racial oppression in school. These cases demonstrate that a praxis of justice attends to curriculum and power, relationships, pedagogy, achievement, and identity. White teachers, specifically, must interrogate the role of Whiteness in their teaching, or they risk engaging in virtue signaling that reproduces injustice.

Keywords

social justice whiteness elementary education urban education

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Beyond Virtue Signaling: From Talking About to Enacting a Pedagogical Praxis of Justice in Urban Classrooms

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